long weeks

Well this week was a long one - I ended up flying tues, wed, thurs to take me right into my navigation 2-check. The 2-check is where we fly our final flight before our checkride where one of our IP's essentially allows us to go to our check ride. Tuesday in particular was a long one, I had to show up early for a formal brief, then we had a class on low level stuff which would have been more helpful before we started flying them, then we took an emergency procedures quiz and did a stand up EP before I flew around 2pm aye.

The flights all went well enough, I did a bunch of approaches on my flights tuesday and wednesday, then did a low level on thursday. Right now I'm scheduled to do my 2-check on Tuesday then have a day to plan on Wednesday and do my Navigation checkride on Thursday. Hopefully everything goes well and I'll be into the downhill portion of flying the T-1 as things tend to get easier the last month and a half. 

Last weekend I stuck around Del Rio and played some golf Fri and Sat and cooked some food for dinner with my buddy blake on sat night. 

I had one of my greatest golf shots this weekend. On the 2nd hole, a 450 yard par 4 on Saturday I had a crappy tee shot leaving me with 231 yards to get to the hole (there happened to be a marker right near my ball). I hit a 3-wood and the ball landed just short of the green and rolled right up and into the hole. A nice eagle! and my first on a par-4. 

I'll be studying a lot this weekend and probably playing a little golf or watching some of the US Open, then next weekend I'll be heading out to College Station to pick up Megan and possibly floating the guadalupe river in New Bruanfels where my buddy Austin who has been down in Corpus Christi flying c-12's with the navy will be heading up there on Saturday. That should be fun and we'll probably stay in San Antonio that night and come back Sunday, then the next weekend is a 4-day weekend for July 4th which will be very nice!  

3 day fly week

So that part was nice except that like I previously said we ended up with enough lines for our entire class to fly those 3 days so it was a long 3 days. 

On Monday we flew down to Corpus Christi which was cool. I got the PAR in then dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Since it's night week we got back at like 1130 and didn't get to my apt until like 1 (aye). Tuesday kinda sucked since we did an out an back down south again and then headed over to Kelly in San Antonio. Here our IP had his fiance pick us up and we got some crappy seafood. It was pretty terrible but oh well. Anyway then we got back to the airport and I got in the left seat to do my portion of the flight and as we were taxiing to the runway to takeoff we got a call that we had to return directly to base because of bad weather near laughlin. So that meant I put in a 12 hour day and it didn't even count as a flight for me... bummer.

Because of issues with most our class not having the nigh time requirement done for us to graduate they ended up splitting our pairs all up and had one person in our class fly with one person in the class behind us so we could all get night hours. So I flew with a good dude and he was pretty proactive in all the planning and we flew with one of the reserve pilots. I hadn't met him but he was really cool. He's an Academy guy and flies for Southwest. He comes down for like a week every month and flies with students for some extra cash on the side. We did a short local flight out to Abilene and I did a couple approaches and then he flew us back and did the landing at laughlin. Very chill and a pleasant way to end the 'week'. Thursday we had an epq and hung out at the flightroom for a couple hours, then Friday there was a picnic out at the lake and I went out there for an hour before heading to Austin. 

Wills dad is a golf ref and was in Austin for the weekend, reffing the champions tour event held there. So we headed out Friday afternoon and met up with his dad, then got some dinner and waited while 3 of the other dudes in our class came out and picked us up to go downtown. We had a lot of fun in Austin and it was definitely a wild scene there. ( a little too crazy maybe but cool nonetheless) Saturday we woke up later than as planned (big surprise) but we got up around 830 and headed to The Hills CC where the golf tourny was at. We met up with Wills dad who gave us our badges and parking pass and got to hang out there half the day and watch a lot of golf. It was the first real tournament I've been to and it was definitely cool seeing guys I've watched play on TV drive right by in their carts and get angry when they missed 5-footers.

The other guys ended  up heading out to float the river on tubes for a couple hours kinda late so we got back from the golf tournament and got dinner and went and saw Hangover while we waited for them to get back. We went back into town and hung out for a couple hours with the guys then headed back to get up and watch an hour of golf and get lunch with Wills dad in the clubhouse before heading back to Laughlin.

It was a nice weekend and I'm glad I decided to head out there. I might actually stay in Del Rio this weekend and try and start preparing for my checkride I expect to have in a couple weeks and maybe get some golfing in. Flying Tuesday and Wednesday and hopefully that will be it, but we'll see. 

Finally, if you got an email from me about some pictures thing don't bother clicking it. I think it's some kind of spam thing as it somehow sent emails to all my contacts. I'm sure I stupidly gave it my password or something - anyway yeah don't click it.

Here's a few pictures from the last couple weeks. Adios!

The 9th Green, with the tee box out in the distance
Me hanging out at the 18th, par 3 (tee box is off to the left)
Entrance to the George H.W. Bush Lib in College Station
Flying Low level in the T-1
Andrew, Me, Megan, Nick and Chris on the Riverwalk

the last couple weeks

Hmm it's hard to think back to far as I've been neglecting my posting duties here but I'll try and recap slightly what I've been up to.

It's been a busy last few weeks. 3 weekends ago was the corpus christi trip and besides one of my tires blowing out on me it was a great time. we got there late friday night and came back sunday. We got some great seafood in port aransas and hung out at the port A beach most of saturday and then some of the local bars that evening.

That week I flew a couple times and they flights went okay then the next weekend I met up with Nick, Andrew and Chris in San Antonio. It was awesome seeing them for the weekend and we saw a lot of the city and had a good time on the River Walk. On Friday we saw terminator at the rivercenter mall then relaxed on the riverwalk. We attempted to do Six Flags on Saturday but 5 minutes after we got into the park it started pooring - so that was a bust but we hung out for a couple hours and then came back had dinner at the tower restaurant which is always very cool, then enjoyed the riverwalk nightlife.

Sunday we headed out to the La Cantera shops for a couple hours then got some lunch. Megan wasn't feeling well that day so we went and get her checked out while the others chilled at the hotel. She was fine, just some kind of virus. 

Monday I dropped Nick and Chris at the airport as Andrew took an earlier flight and came back to laughlin and ran some errands. That week I flew 2x and had a sim and also got some new tires put on my car. 

This past weekend I had to drive Megan out to College Station where she's coaching a swim camp for kids at Texas A&M for a month. It was a looong drive there and back but I got to see some of the campus which is very nice and saw the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library / Museum. It was a very nice experience there and was happy we stopped by. I enjoyed the array of food and shopping there on Saurday while Megan did some coaching stuff then I said goodbye Sunday morning for the 360 mile trek back to Laughlin. 

This week is only a 3-day Flying week as Thurs,Fri are no fly days for T-1's for some reason but somehow we got a ridiculous amount of jets and our whole class is flying out-and-backs mon,tues,wed which is pretty intense and basically means 12-hour days for those days so I'm still putting in a good 40 hour week! Yesterday we flew down to Corpus and I did a PAR approach at Navy Kingsville. This is where the ATC guy is watching you on radar and can guide you down laterally and vertically to the point that there could be overcast clouds 150' above the ground and he could get you to the runway with aural instructions - it's pretty neat. That went well and I flew a couple approaches into Corpus Int'l and we stopped in and had dinner at the texas roudhouse in corpus which is a treat. (being that there's nothing in Del Rio) Then Barry and I switched seats and he did  the night flight back. I'll fly the night portion tonight and we'll be deciding where to go in about an hour. 

That about covers the important parts. This weekend my buddy Will invited me out to Austin as his dads going to be out there reffing a golf match so I may do that although I've been doing a lot of weekend traveling so I'll mull it over a bit more.

I also talked to my units training office today to see when they'd have dates for my follow-on training and they said it would probably be another month argh. I really want to start planning some fun stuff to do when I'm done here but they're holding me back since I don't know when I'll be doing c-5 school and survival. Anyway - I'll be counting the days - adios.

Copilot Rides are Niiiice.

Had a Copilot Out and Back ride yesterday and it was a lot of fun. Like I said, the copilot rides are where we sit in the right seat and do all the checklist stuff. The weather was ugly up North so we ended up planning to go East out to Lake Charles, LA. 

It ended up being very cool. We got there and did a couple approaches to cover some of the copilot requirements and then landed and spent a couple hours there. We took the Jaguar crew car they have there and drove to a seafood place for lunch. Then came back and picked up our 1$ lunches the FBO makes to bring back for dinner and watched half of Taledaga Nights in the movie theater room they have there at the FBO. We flew back and got in around 230 for a nice easy day. 

Middle of May already?

The early wake-ups are getting old but haven't been as bad as the first month. I only flew once last week but knocked out a couple sims too so it wasn't all bad. I fly tomorrow and it's an out-and-back copilot ride. We fly out somewhere and get some food then my partner and I switch places and we fly back home. It's also a copilot ride which means we sit in the right seat and perform copilot duties (aka not actually flying but doing radios and checklists and things like that). It's a little different and should be more "chill". 

I'm starting to get Del Rio fever (cabin fever but enlarged to the size of Del Rio) and I think I may try and head back to Corpus this weekend, then the following weekend Nick, Andrew and Chris are coming out to San Antonio for Memorial Day weekend and that should be a lot of fun. 

Probably a good 6 weeks before another checkride so it feels good to have a little time to relax a bit and hopefully be prepared for that one down the road. Sorry for the lack of updates I'll try to do better !

Well the first checkride is over with and I have about 22 flights before the next one so that feels pretty good. 

To celebrate Megan, Blake and I went out to Corpus Christi for the weekend which was a lot of fun. We left Friday and stayed in San Antonio for the night and left for Corpus Sat morning. We hit the beach for a bit and I realized I hadn't been to the beach in like a year and a half which is nuts. Then we went to the local bar there for "Belt Sander Races". These guys take belt sanders and mod them up to race them down a 40 foot or so track. It's pretty hilarious and my buddy Aaron who we stayed with has some big plans for his $20 black and decker belt sander he recently picked up at a pawn shop. 

Aaron lives in Port Aransas which is a neat little beach town. It reminds me of like Wildwood, and there's lots of little seafood restaurants, quiet beaches and a nice variety of dive bars and more lively club style bars. Aaron did a fish fry Sat night, cooking up a bunch of halibut that he had brought down from Alaska (fish he had caught and had packaged himself). Then we hit up a few of the bars that are within walking distance, I definitely miss not having to drive everywhere. We left this morning and did the 4.5 hour trip back to Del Rio and it went pretty quick overall but it's an exhausting drive. 

The trip was a lot of fun and I left feeling very jealous that guys going to C-130's get to enjoy 6 months out there on the beach training with the Navy while I'm stuck in the desert on Laughlin. CJ got hosed but oh well. 

This week I'll have a night flight on Tuesday where we'll fly to a couple outbases and shoot some approaches. Then Wednesday we leave for our X-Country flight. We'll end up in Shreveport, LA that night and then come back late Thursday night. It's definitely nice we don't have to do the XC over the weekend like in T-6's - that really made for a long couple weeks!

1st T-1 Checkride Tomorrow

That about covers it, I flew Monday and Tuesday and both flights went pretty well. Patternwork and MOA work was all really nice and the in-between stuff was decent. So hopefully things go well tomorrow.  I'll fly first tomorrow which means I do all the ground ops stuff and the departure out of laughlin which is kind of a pain - but I also get to get all my stuff over with pretty quick which is nice so I guess it's good and bad. I'll spend tonight go over stuff he might ask in the brief and be sure I have everything down for tomorrows flight. 815 Takeoff so at least I'll know how I did by lunchtime.